Right there with you! I preordered it, played at launch, loved every bit of it, and love the expanded updates its gotten even more. Its like taking the world of Final Fantasy and turning it into an open, monster hunter life sim with the bros with a solid story on top of it all. People love to hate modern Final Fantasy imo rather than accept the newer directions just aren't their cup of tea.

I've probably talked more about XV than any other supposedly bad game, so maybe I've developed some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. But for an objectively pretty bad game I enjoyed parts of it and it did elicit emotions out of me at times.

The game has many problems, but maybe the biggest is the huge overambitious "multi-media experience" they attempted. The game itself suffers because its content is spread so thin as it's stretched out over a movie and a comic and the DLCs and I don't remember what else. An anime? Even the Royal Edition still suffers for not integrating the DLCs, and it's kind of awkward to have to stop playing at the appropriate times to go so the DLCs for the maximum impact. And even then the planned Lunafreya DLC would have added so much to the story, but they never got around to that as the game flopped (in large parts because crucial story elements were scheduled for fucking DLCs instead of included in the game!)

I do agree that the combat is fun, and they did have a really good vibe going with the bros and the road trip. There are some really nice heartfelt moments where the game shines. And the fishing minigame is absolute top drawer, one of the best in gaming. But ultimately I look at it as a huge pile of wasted potential.

Absolutely gorgeous music though, some really powerful leitmotif work like Sunset Waltz/Valse di Fantastica and Ardyns themes.